


Gimme Some Sugar

by morioriohno



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, M/M, Sugar, This is the second time that coffee has played a large part in my tuckington fic, post s13, this is also my second tuckington fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17156876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morioriohno/pseuds/morioriohno
Summary: All of the base’s sugar is gone, and Tucker has found a suspect.





	Gimme Some Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> My Secret Santa fic for @rveebee on tumblr!

“Friends, assholes, and everyone in between!” Grif proclaims. “Now, you may be curious as to why I’ve called you all here today. Rest assured, this is a matter of the utmost fucking urgency!”

You’re not really curious, actually—you’ve already decided that the reason for this meeting is stupid. 

“Is there an actual _reason_ we had to meet so damn early?” Wash mumbles through a yawn. Like everyone else here, he hasn’t had the time to change out of fatigues, and you know he sleeps like an absolute wreck so this is definitely a cramp in his schedule. Still found the time to make coffee, though. He slides a mug across the table towards you, which you greedily start slurping down. Yeah, that’s the stuff. Leave it to him to make it just the way you like it.

“Oh, rest assured, _David,_ this is a matter of federal fucking importance.” Grif glares at Wash until the freelancer puts up hands in resignation.

“Great,” you mutter back, taking the spoon out of your coffee and lazily gesturing towards the saner of the Grifs across the table. “Grif, buddy, I hate to tell you this, but nothing is worth waking everyone on the damn _moon_ up.”

“Yeah!” Donut exclaims, standing up and planting his hands on the table. “You can’t tell me what to do, I’m going back to lounge in my lap of luxury and you can’t stop me!”

“Sit your _ass_  down, Donut!” he screeches, loud enough that everyone at the table flinches back slightly. “As of this moment, all of you are _suspects!_  I don’t care if you’re an alien, brain-dead or my fucking flesh and blood, nobody’s leaving this room until justice has been served!”

“Come on, Grif. You  _can’t_ be serious—” Simmons begins, but Grif cuts him off immediately.

“Oh, I am serious as the _PLAGUE_ ,” he squawks back at him. “Except _this_ particular plague is made a bajillion times worse by the un-fucking-believable travesty of the fact that we are _OUT OF SUGAR!”_

The room falls silent, save for Wash’s quiet sipping of coffee.

 _Well_ , you think as you stare at Grif, _that definitely explains the crazy eyes._

“Completely?” Carolina is the first to break the lull. “Grif, it doesn’t make sense. The storerooms here have enough supplies to last us another year—“

“Wake up and smell the pantry, Lina! We’re _out._ We got nothing. I’m talking everything. _Cane_ sugar. _Brown_ sugar. Confectionary. Splenda. Truvía.” He rambles them off like a hit list. “It’s all fucking gone!”

“That doesn’t seem physically possible,” Wash says.

“Well, you better believe it, Blue, we are _out._ Expect sour breakfast and disgusting coffee for the rest of your life!” 

“You sure you didn’t just inhale it all?” you groan at Grif—his head whips around towards you with a demonic glow in his eyes.

“Don’t fuck with me, Tucker, I _know_ that Blue Team’s got a sweet tooth the size of the known universe.”

Of course, Simmons chimes in. “You know, that’s not really a great analogy, since the universe is always expanding—“

“Like your gaping mouth hole, apparently!”

You watch, disinterested, as the two of them launch at each other and immediately throw their bickering into overdrive. Christ, it’s way too early for this.

“Welp,” Caboose says suddenly. “That explains my waffles.”

“Caboose, you put steak seasoning in there,” Carolina replies.

“No, I’m pretty sure that was just spicy flour.”

Wash stands up and stretches—you swear you hear something crack. Clearly he’s as done with this as you are. “Not that this hasn’t been fun, which it _hasn’t_ , but I’m going for a jog. Tucker, you coming?”

You survey the scene. Carolina is attempting to console Caboose as he mopes over a stack of very spicy-looking waffles, Grif and Simmons are just getting bangrier, Donut’s taking all the whipped cream from the fridge, Sarge isn’t even here, Lopez you think is somewhere.

Yeah this seems like the sane way to go.

You finish off your coffee and get up. “Yeah, let’s bounce.” You resign yourself to just erase this entire meeting from your mind, forever. It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself, and you jog faster than usual to let the adrenaline drill it into your head.

You can survive without sugar, right?

•

You’re wrong. You’re so damn wrong. Sugar is the lifeblood of the Reds and Blues, and it’s taking everything out of every single one of you just to survive. Carolina makes it a day before calling Kimball for another supply run, but Kimball can’t send anything. Blockade and all that. For the moment, you’re all just going to have to suck it up.

Coffee is just sad now. You thought you didn’t use a lot of sugar, but Jesus, you were so very wrong. Donut uses whipped cream now instead, and even he has to admit that it’s not the tastiest thing in the world. Grif tried to make his usual coffee and cried, like, actual adult man tears. Oreo cream doesn’t work on coffee, as you and he have figured out. Caboose’s breakfast baking, which is usually surprisingly incredible, has taken the steepest of nosedives into downright disgusting. Fruity Pebbles have never tasted better in your entire life. Simmons has gotten bitter, much like everything everyone is eating lately. Sarge doesn’t seem to have noticed a difference—pretty sure he pounds back a beer instead of coffee, but kudos to the geezer for sticking to his guns. Lopez doesn’t eat.

The more you think about it, the only person who doesn’t seem affected is Wash. Which is weird. Very weird. A week into the sugar drought, you decide to corner him and get an answer as to why he’s not dead. 

“I’m a soldier,” he replies, sitting down on his bed beside you and passing you another mug. “I’ve had to adapt to far worse situations before.”

You wait a moment before trying the coffee and _oh sweet Jesus that’s good._ “Wash, holy fuck, how do you make it that good without any sugar? What, man, you gotta tell me. Is it some top secret PFL shit you and Lina learned?”

“Nah,” he says with a shrug, taking a sip from his own mug. “I’m just good at making coffee, I guess. Just hit me up when you want some, I’ll make it whenever.”

“You mean it, man?” You can’t help but feel immensely grateful for this small mug of actually good coffee—the idea of more just kinda blows your fucking mind.

“Sure.”

You beam back at him, watching as his smile widens a bit. “Thanks! Oh, fuck, _good_  coffee. God, I miss good coffee.”

“I’m sure we all do,” Wash says.

The two of you do the dishes and make hot cocoa for Caboose, which Wash figures will hold him over for a bit. Then you go and watch some movies of questionable quality, do some training with Carolina, call Junior, and fall asleep to thoughts of Church. Your routine stays the same, only now the situation is different because you start each day off with coffee with Wash. You both sit there, on his bed, for an hour or two, chatting about fuck knows what, until something goes wrong outside and one of you has to deal with it. But for the time being, it’s nice, just some coffee shared between some guys. Everyone else is slowly crashing and burning without sugar, but you and him are content.

It isn’t until about two weeks later that you realize that the coffee is sweet.

•

Okay, nope. You thought you could ignore it, but this coffee is _definitely_ sweet. And not sweet like it’s a bad thing. Sweet as in, the entire moon is in a sugar crisis, and your coffee is sweet.

Logic dictates only one explanation—

_Wash has sugar._

Being a flawlessly skilled detective, you decide to get an answer out of him again. This time, no bullshit.

“So,” you drawl, sloshing your mug around as you lean back on his bed. “Have I ever told you this is some _really_ good coffee? Like, _wow?”_

Wash is unfazed as he looks over his datapad. “Yes, Tucker, you have. Multiple times.”

“You _gotta_ tell me your secret, man.”

“No secret, really. I just know how to make good coffee.”

“Yeah, but like, what do you use to make it so sweet? Fuck knows we’re out of whipped cream, oreos, and any candy we might have stashed somewhere. What’s your _real_ secret?” You tip the mug back and empty it.

“There’s _no_ secret, Tucker. Don’t beat a dead horse into the ground.” He says it steadily, but you don’t miss how he speeds up in his scrolling on the datapad—he’s faking reading now? Oh, gosh, he’s _so_ guilty. 

“Right,” you lie. As you say it, you casually check the bottom of the—oh my god, how did you never check the mugs when you washed the dishes, there’s sugar _in them_. “Hey, Wash?”

“Yeah?”

You hold it out towards him so he can see the small, undissolved granules leftover at the bottom of the mug. “Is this sugar?”

His face twitches slightly—yeah, it’s definitely sugar. “Tucker, we’re out of sugar. Must be leftover coffee grounds.”

“Mhm, mhm,” you agree, standing up. “Right, of course.”

“...What are you doing?” His voice is cautionary, bordering on frigid.

“Oh, nothing,” you say, walking slowly over to his closet. He sets his mug down and walks to your side, slamming the closet door closed as you pull it open.

“Tucker—“ he warns, but you’re already springing into action and you scramble over his bed, putting the bed between the two of you. His tone turns exasperated. “Tucker, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I know you have sugar, Wash,” you snicker. His expression changes from exhausted to alert in seconds. “I just gotta find it, and then your ass is _busted.”_

“Come on. You’re overthinking this,” he says, but his eyes are darting around all nervouslike and you just _know_ he’s got some sugar to hide.

“Alright, prove it! Show me how you make such good coffee without _any_ sugar!”

He stops for a moment and you take the opportunity to check under his bed—nothing there _OH FUCK_

You screech as Wash tackles you onto the bed, and knowing full well that this is not the time, you mutter, “Bow chicka bow wow...”

The perplexed look on his face gives you the opening to scramble free and grab one of his pillows, whacking him in the face with it. He stumbles back with a swear, and as he does, something heavy falls out of the pillowcase.

Holy shit, it’s a whole fucking unopened  _sack_ of confectionary sugar.

“ _NO!”_  Wash screams, diving for it, but you’re smaller and faster and you’ve got your sword held up to the sack before Wash can do anything. This is by far the best blackmail you’ve ever gotten on anyone, ever, of all time.

“Worried, are we?” Even to your own ears, you sound smug. “You know Grif can sense this shit from a mile away. Talk and _maybe_ Grif doesn’t hear it from me. Where do you hide the sugar?”

“I—“

You bring your sword closer to the bag and he yelps, “Wait! Okay, okay, fuck, just...just don’t tell Grif.”

His face flushes red with embarrassment. You watch in utter amazement as he moves his bed aside, pulls up two of the floor tiles to reveal a _fucking key,_ then moves a ceiling tile and inserts the key into a lock and _then_ brings down, one by one, at least a dozen boxes of assorted sweetener. 

“Happy?” he snaps.

You attempt to resist the urge to laugh and fail so miserably, you actually laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed in your life. You think some coffee might come back out your nose.

“W-hehehe...when, when did you s-start stealing, stealing sugar?!” you gasp out between snorting, hiccupy laughter. 

“Three months ago,” he admits, which of course makes you laugh even harder, because _that’s_ just fucking unbelievable. 

“So—so you’ve been, _pfftttt_ , been sneaking sugar from the kitchen and, and the storerooms for...for _three whole damn months_?!!!!”

“...Yes.” His face is a darker shade of red than Simmons.

“A-a grown man, stealing fucking _Splenda?_ You couldn’t even leave the Splenda?”

“It’s still sweet,” he argues, and you laugh even harder, you can’t stop picturing the image of him just ninja sneaking into the kitchen when everyone else is sleeping and just stealing— _fucking_ Splenda! Jesus, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer from laughing too hard.

Wash’s tone turns pleading, which only makes it worse, because he’s treating this like it’s the end of the world. “Tucker, please, stop laughing! I’ll let you take as much as you want, _please._ I’ve never been more afraid of Grif in my entire life than I am about what he’d do to me if he knew.”

You manage to reign in your laughter. Just kidding, you actually can’t physically stop at this point. You can’t even take a break to tell him that you can’t stop, you’re just laughing it up.

Someone bangs on the door loudly—Grif from the voice. “HEY! You two banging in there or what? Shut the fuck up, it’s too early for this!” Oh shit.

“Crap!” Wash yelps, and without warning you he just tackles you to the ground except you’re not really standing too stably and your sword goes straight through the sack before you can do anything to stop it and _poof._

Sugar flies everywhere. _Everywhere_. The room looks like someone tossed a smoke grenade into it, except the smoke grenade tasted really good this time. You and Wash are both coughing like crazy, and Wash looks at the sugar with dawning horror as Grif unleashes an unearthly screech from the hallway. 

Welp. The damage is done. Might as well make it fun.

You get up and pull your sword back like a fucking chainsaw and just cleave right through Wash’s hoard, still laughing hysterically since Wash honestly looks a little bit like he’s about to cry. You run around the room, throwing sugar like a maniac as Wash just watches and Grif just screams.

•

An hour later, the Reds and Blues have all left Wash’s room after salvaging what was left after this... What would you even _call_ what just happened? A fiasco? Probably. After this fiasco. This was probably largely your fault, but you know what? Who _cares?_ You guys aren’t fucking marines anymore. You’re just dudes. Dudes who can fight each other to the death over a sack of sugar on the moon. That’s just life now. 

When Grif found out, he seemed torn between murdering Wash on the spot and just crying of happiness. He did ban Wash from the kitchen for a week as punishment, but luckily he decided to just be happy there was sugar left and didn’t murder anybody. God, Carolina looked so fucking disappointed in Wash. She complimented your detective skills though, so net-net? Caboose had honest to god made a snow angel on Wash’s bed before Grif had screeched at him to get off and start shoveling.

When everyone finally leaves, it’s just the two of you, sitting on the end of Wash’s bed. There’s still a thick layer of sugar coating Wash’s entire room, and Wash, and you. Stupidly, you decide to break the silence.

“So we’re going to have to clean this up eventually,” you say.

He gives you possibly the nastiest look he’s ever given you. “I’m sorry.  _We?_ ”

“Hey, you stole it in the first place, you brought this on yourself,” you argue.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then sighs and gives up.

“Why’d you even steal it in the first place?” you ask with a grin.

You swear his face goes a little red again as he mutters, “I’ve...I’ve got a pretty bad sweet tooth, okay? And I know Grif would just inhale the whole supply if he knew where it was. It was a matter of securing our rations—“

“Securing _your_  rations.”

His brow furrows in frustration. “...Yeah, okay, fine. I was selfish and it’s been a while since I could just have as much sugar in my drinks as I want, happy now?”

You shrug. “Can’t really blame ya. After all, you _do_ make some bomb-ass coffee—“

“Fuck off.” He shoves you to the side, sending a wave of Splenda across the room. “I’m never making you coffee again.”

“Never?”

“ _Never_ in your fucking life, Lavernius Tucker.”

“Then at least show me how to make it like that? Come on, dude, don’t be such a stick up the ass.”

“...Maybe,” he mutters back. You suppose that’s all you’re getting for now.

The two of you are silent for a minute or so.

“Sugar’s pretty tasty, huh,” Wash says.

“Yeah,” you agree. “And like, it’s so _good_ in things, right?”

Wash swivels towards you. “I know, right?!”

“Pancakes?”

“Regular cake!”

“Pastries.”

“Bagels.”

“Donuts!”

“Lemonade!”

“Coffee,” you say.

Wash nods. “ _Especially_ coffee.”

“Too bad you’re banned from the kitchen.”

“Well, I’ve got my own coffee maker, otherwise everyone would’ve figured me out.”

“Oh.” That makes sense, now that you think about it. “That’s probably the only smart decision you made in this entire fiasco.”

“Yyyyup.” Wash pops the ‘p’ sound at the end for emphasis. “Jesus, I really fucked this one up. It’s...honestly really weird for me to be in a situation like this. It’s been so long since I just dicked around with someone close to me.”

Something about the way he says it makes you feel kinda warm and fuzzy inside. “Well, maybe we should do this more often?”

“Maybe,” he says again. But it sounds more certain this time.

The two of you sit in silence for a few more minutes before Wash clutches at his stomach and groans. “Agh, I miss good food. In hindsight this was pretty stupid of me.”

“Hey, at least Grif didn’t assassinate you. I’d say that, all things considered, you’re getting a pretty... _sweet_ deal.” You wish you had sunglasses to flip down.

“...Did you just fucking make a sugar pun? I hate you.” He says it, but you see the smile on his face, hidden as it is by the heavy dusting of powdered sweetness.

You grin too, licking the sugar off your lips. “I know.”


End file.
